Chislehurst and its Caves: Daylight Shunned and Daylight Saved on My 300th Lead

Location

Bromley area, Greater London

OutdoorLads shares the exact meeting point with people who have signed up, closer to the date. See the OutdoorLads listing for details.

About this event

As this event includes an exclusive guided tour of Chislehurst Caves, it is £13 for all members.The clocks actually go back on Sunday 25th October, but creepy, chilly Chislehurst Caves couldn't take our booking for a guided tour then. The day that British Summer Time ended would have been so appropriate, because on the tour of the town and fields of Chislehurst that we'll do after our tour of the caves, we'll encounter the grave of the man who did most to bring about Daylight Saving, one William Willett. While out on the remarkably rural green spaces in between the handsome houses, we'll also encounter Malcolm Campbell, Napoleon III and Charles de Gaulle. The dwindling daylight of Autumn will be a motif of the walk, shunned in the caves, saved in the history and savoured on the heaths.The sights:Chislehurst: A wooded, affluent suburb with medieval origins. Its historic core centres on the High Street and St Nicholas’s Church, whose churchyard contains the burials of William Willett, the advocate of daylight saving, and Sir Malcolm Campbell, the land- and water-speed record holder. The village expanded rapidly after the railway arrived in 1865, attracting substantial Victorian houses and wealthy City residents. We'll also glimpse Camden Place, the home of the French Emperor Napoleon III from 1871 to 1873. Napoleon staged a coup d’état in 1851 against Napoleon I's nephew, Louis-Napoleon, overthrowing the Second Republic's constitutional government, proclaiming himself Emperor Napoleon III and establishing the Second French Empire. Following personal defeat during the Franco-Prussian War at the Battle of Sedan in 1870, he was overthrown and the Third Republic was proclaimed. Captured by the Prussians, he went into exile in Britain, settling at Chislehurst, where he died in 1873. His Empress, Eugénie, lived on occasionally there, dying in 1920.Chislehurst Caves: A 22-mile labyrinth of artificial chalk workings, excavated from the C18 onwards for chalk, lime and flint, the chalk was used agriculturally and the flint for firearm triggers. Opened as a visitor attraction in 1900, the atmospheric tunnels soon acquired legends and ghost stories, but their most important use came during the Second World War, when they became a vast deep air-raid shelter accommodating up to 15,000 people, some of whom continued to live underground after their homes had been destroyed. By November 1940, special evening trains ran from Cannon Street to Chislehurst to cope with the crowds. Hitler knew about them and Lord Haw-Haw referred to them, ominously warning that the Germans 'knew about the rats living underground in Kent' and that they 'were coming to get them'. Later used for mushroom cultivation and as a concert venue, with David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix performing there in the 1960s and 1970s. The carvings made by New Zealand-born artist Sandy Brown, who worked alone underground, and until 1985 a £5 challenge was offered to anyone willing to spend the night alone in the caves. One policeman succeeded by spending the night carving a figure into the wall, but afterwards said he would never repeat the experience, while another challenger was found unconscious and unable to explain what had happened. They were used as a filming location for Doctor Who’s 1972 serial The Mutants, in which the Third Doctor and Jo Grant help the Solonians overthrow the evil Marshal. We’re booked in for an exclusive 50-minute tour covering one mile, not 22!. See the video here.Scadbury Park: A rare survival of a medieval rural landscape within Greater London, encompassing woodland, meadows, farmland and historic parkland. Little-remains of the moated medieval manor house (foundations, cellars, undercroft, fishponds and traces of a bridge) which belonged to the Walsingham family from 1424, including Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s celebrated spymaster. Its ancient woodland, hedgerows and wetland habitats are of considerable ecological importance.Petts Wood: An inter-war garden suburb, developed after 1928. Detached and semi-detached houses, mature gardens and tree-lined streets. The adjoining woodland, protected from development by the National Trust, is central to its identity. Leader of the Free French and future President of France Charles de Gaulle and his family lived briefly at 41 Birchwood Road in 1940, during his wartime exile, before bombing prompted their move to Shropshire. William Willett Memorial: A 1927 memorial sundial to builder William Willett (1856-1915), who campaigned for daylight saving, stands in the woodland. Set to British Summer Time, it bears the apt inscription, “I only tell the summer hours”. Willett became Britain’s leading campaigner for daylight saving. The idea reportedly came to him during an early-morning ride near Petts Wood, when he noticed people sleeping despite the summer daylight. In 1907 he published The Waste of Daylight, proposing that clocks should advance progressively in spring and revert in autumn, allowing more evening daylight and reducing artificial-light consumption. Despite support from Winston Churchill, his proposals failed in Parliament. Willett died in 1915 without seeing them adopted. Britain introduced British Summer Time in 1916, partly to conserve coal during the First World War.The route (please click to see it at the Ordnance Survey):We'll walk along Station Approach to Old Hill before turning down Forest Close to go to the caves. Back on Old Hill, we'll walk to the Bromley Road, see Camden Place, then cross Chislehurst Common to Centre Common Road. We'll go up the High Street, turn right up Park Road, the take an alleyway to Foxbury, and go in a loop round to the Cemetery, cross the A222 and follow a footpath across Scadbury Park. We'll then follow the London Loop and Manor Park Road southwest to Chislehurst Church and the Tiger's Head. We'll then follow Hawkwood Lane and Botany Bay Lane before veering east to resume the London Loop, only leaving it to see Birchwood Road. Re-emerging into an open space, we'll follow Kyd Brook and Gosshill Road back to Station Approach.Dogs:This walk is less suitable for dogs as they aren't permitted in the caves, but if you and your dog would like to meet the group at 13.15 when the tour is over, you and they would enjoy the remaining walk. Message me about this to avoid paying the £13.(Picture credits: The banner picture, the one from Doctor Who and the one of the carvings are from the Chislehurst Caves website and are copyrighted by Chislehurst Caves, but permission has been given to use them for the purpose of promoting this event. The others photos are: London Loop, Petts Wood: Photo © Des Blenkinsopp (cc-by-sa/2.0); Bales in a field: Photo © N Chadwick (cc-by-sa/2.0); Carvings in Chislehurst Caves: Photo © Marathon (cc-by-sa/2.0); Path at Hawkwood Estate: Photo © Marathon (cc-by-sa/2.0); Tongs Farm, Hawkhurst estate: Photo © Marathon (cc-by-sa/2.0); Field beside Petts Wood: Photo © David Martin (cc-by-sa/2.0); Footpath on The Gorse: Photo © Des Blenkinsopp (cc-by-sa/2.0); Camden Place: Photo © Ian Capper (cc-by-sa/2.0); Lane into Scadbury Park: Photo © David Martin (cc-by-sa/2.0); Park Wood, Chislehurst: Photo © Stephen Richards (cc-by-sa/2.0); William Willett's memorial, Petts Wood, Chislehurst, Kent: Photo © Dr Neil Clifton (cc-by-sa/2.0); Small copse just outside Petts Wood: Photo © David Martin (cc-by-sa/2.0). All pictures are copyrighted but are licensed for reuse under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 2.0 and are here attributed to their copyright holders.)